Free?

[Kagamin]

Steven Schveighoffer Wrote:

> 1. Software is already well-covered by copyright.

You can't write software out of thin air. Let's suppose ranges increase usability of a collections library. Can you write a collections library without knowing about ranges concept? That's what patents are for.

> 3. It is a very slippery slope to go down.  Software is a purely  
> *abstract* thing, it's not a machine.

Software is a machine: concrete thing doing concrete job. Patent doesn't protect the machine itself, it protects concrete design work put into it. Design is a high-profile work, a good design has a good chance to be more expensive than the actual implementation. So it's perfectly valid to claim ownership for a design work and charge fees for it.

> It can be produced en mass with near-zero cost.

Dead software is seen as unusable. So - no, to produce software you need continuous maintenance and development which is as expensive as any other labor.

> 4. Unlike a physical entity, it is very likely a simple individual,  
> working on his own time with his own ideas, can create software that  
> inadvertently violates a "patent" with low cost.

I don't see how this doesn't apply to physical machines.
How to improve patent system is another question. GPL3 can actually play some role here: there's no mercantile reason to restrict use of a patented technology in a GPL3 software.

> 5. The patent office does *NOT UNDERSTAND* software, so they are more apt  
> to grant trivial patents (e.g. one-click).

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn965-wheel-patented-in-australia.html